Age of Ultron: Book
Seven by Brian Michael Bendis
and Brandon Peterson and Carlos Pacheco was a little
uneven. The past sequences by Pacheco
were interesting, but the present scenes by Peterson not so much. While I prefer Carlos’ art over Brandon’s, it
really was more of the story and the character designs in the “now” that I didn’t
like. Alternate Timelines are supposed
to generate really amazing costume changes (like Mirror Mirror), but just look at the cover of marred heroes. It doesn’t look that exciting to me (although
my LCS owner did like it) and you can’t
even recognize Janet as being Janet. I
wish Pacheco was doing the whole series – his and Busiek’s Avengers Forever is one of the all-time greatest epics!
Read it on the stands.
All-New X-Men # 011
by Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen was a great issue that
was marred by a poor publishing schedule.
In issue #010 we were left with the cliff-hanger as to which of the
original X-Men decided to join Cyclops’ and Magneto’s team. We got the answer that it was Angel in the
next issue of Uncanny X-Men. I thought this was fine at the time, since
the books have intertwined so seamlessly.
However, this issue takes place before
the Uncanny one and even the cover,
which is fantastic, is trying to tease you on the defector’s identity. The first page layout is outstanding as we
pan back in five panels from Jean to Hank to Bobby to Scott to Kitty with each
character focused in the preceding panel now in the background. All this is prelude to the big reveal
one-page splash of Angel standing in front of Cyclops “X”. Now, with the super accelerated publishing
schedule of both these titles, why couldn’t they have waited on the last two
issues of Uncanny? They could have just published both issues next week. Talk about a momentum killer.
The rest of the issue dealt with the discussion immediately before
Angel and company depart. Jean tries to
take control of Warren’s mind again, only this time it doesn’t work. She also gets a major mental beat-down by the
evil-triplets. There’s a sub-plot where
Mystique pretends to be Pepper Potts and steals Tony Stark’s financial
portfolio. Kitty tells Jean that she
needs to stop trying to control everything, threatening to end their
association if Jean gets out of line again.
There’s some good dialogue in a couple of places about how they almost
can’t really go back anyway, because they’ve already changed to much from what
they’ve experienced in the future. The
ending was another great cliff-hanger and the team is going to face-off against
Scott’s brother and his uncanny avenging cohorts.
Buy it.
hawkeye #010 by matt fraction and francesco francavilla was incomprehensible. I get that the hit man who killed “Grills”
was hitting on Kate, but it was more like a dream sequence than a story. Really, really poor execution (pun intended).
Avoid it like an STD.
Indestructible Hulk
#007 by Mark Waid and Walter Simonson was very
enjoyable. It helps that Walt is doing
classic Thor again (the story is set in the past). I liked the explanation of how Hulk managed
to “wield” Thor’s hammer. The art was
great of course and Eliopoulos did a great job mimicking John Workman on the
lettering. The best part is that we’ve
got one more chapter. I’m still not
really keen on this version of either the Hulk or Banner. I think it has to do with the movie-fication
of the Marvel Universe (a topic for another day).
Buy it if you’re a Simonson Thor fan. Read it on the stands otherwise.
IRON MAN #258.1
by David Micheline, Dave Ross and Bob Layton was okay. I was a
little confused at the numbering. In the
preface they say that Armor Wars II began in #258. So, does this take place
after that issue or does it take place instead
of that issue? Regardless I was happy to
see Micheline and Layton (Ross is no slouch either) back on Iron Man. I remember that era of the Jerry-curl Tony
Stark and while it wasn’t as good as the issues covered in their recent Iron Man Omnibus, it still was a good
run. I don’t mind these untold stories
if their well done. I did like that David
didn’t resort to the modern monologue narration. If you’re going to “fill-in” some gaps, it
should be seamless (same storytelling). Same price would be even better, although I
was excited that there was a digital code for this book!
Buy it if you still have the original run. Read it on the stands, if you only have fond
memories of that era. Otherwise, skip it. How’s that for a “wishy-washy” recommendation?
Come back Tuesday for Part Two and five more titles!
DON'T FORGET IT'S FREE COMIC BOOK DAY!!!
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